


It's the Hard-Knock Life (For Us)

by Wonderlandleighleigh



Series: Just This Once, Everybody Lives [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, Gen, M/M, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 16:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18695026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wonderlandleighleigh/pseuds/Wonderlandleighleigh
Summary: Steve Rogers didn't mean to start a home for abandoned kids. It just kind of happened.





	It's the Hard-Knock Life (For Us)

Steve isn’t quite certain how it started, other than the fact that he couldn’t just leave four kids on a street corner in the rain with no real way to fend for themselves. 

It’s eight months into Thanos’ new “better” world, and…

Well…

Things are a mess. 

He crouches down in front of the four of them, grinning sadly. “How can I help?” 

They look twelve a-piece, and the leader is gangly; he wrings chocolate-skinned hands worriedly, but takes a breath and clears his throat, standing up a little straighter to speak for the group. 

“Our parents are gone,” he tells Steve. “And the power in our neighborhood got shut off, and we’re kinda outta money.” 

Steve grimaces. 

There’s really no other choice.

He takes the kids back to his apartment building, empty now, except for him, and gets the four of them settled in one of the empty units.

And it goes from there. Word spreads, and abandoned kids just...show up. 

Steve does his best. He makes sure everybody eats, he makes sure everybody’s got the essentials; TP and water, toothbrushes and paste, and he even goes and buys board games (the internet in Brooklyn isn’t reliable so video games and Netflix are a little spotty) and playing cards and toys. He leaves the door to his unit open At All Times so he can hear if the kids need his help, and by the time year five rolls around, there are almost fifty kids, seven or so in each of the eight two-bedroom units in his building, with the youngest and in most need staying in his spare room.

Three years in and things are running okay. Everybody who’s old enough goes to school. The older kids get jobs and babysit the younger ones, and Steve starts a community garden next to the building in an open patch of land, and he plants everything. Tomatoes, eggplant, cucumber and green beans. Rivka and Carlos help him out sometimes with the planting and harvesting. 

Steve doesn’t know how he manages to keep them all straight, but he does. The older ones are easy; the four that he found first. But the younger kids...well. There are two Mollys, three Amandas, seven Kevins, a Rose, two Jamals, a Sally, four kids with a variation on James (Jim, Jimmy, Jamie and James), three Joshes...the list goes on.

There’s a knock on the door about a year in, late at night, and Carlos, one of the older boys, swings open the door and frowns as he looks around to find no one standing there. 

But when he looks down, he finds a little wicker basket with a wiggly baby inside, and he nearly throws up, but manages to yell “CAP!” instead.

Steve frets hard over the infant. She can’t be more than a few months old, and she’s not a victim of the snap taking her parents. Somebody just dumped her on their doorstep. 

She’s a sweet baby. She doesn’t cry much, and she gives little baby smiles and wiggles happily in Steve’s arms, clinging to him.

He grins sadly and looks up at his four oldest. Those four original kids: Troy, Tamika, Carlos and Rivka. “Okay. Troy, I need you to hit the store. Grab some diapers, baby formula, and wipes, and I’m gonna need a crib. Tamika, hit the web and see if we can order one asap, and when it gets here, put the Kevins on getting it constructed. Rivka, Carlos, wrangle the kids together and we’ll introduce our little newbie.” 

“She needs a name,” Rivka says. “She doesn’t have a name.” 

Steve takes a deep breath, gazes down at the tiny pink infant and smiles sadly. “Margaret.” 

“Maggie for short?” Carlos asks. 

Steve nods. “Sure. Maggie for short.” 

***** 

He digs a big fire pit in the backyard and in the summer, everybody sits around a bonfire. Marshmallows and hot dogs are toasted, and the kids take turns telling bad jokes and Steve tells them all sorts of stories. 

“Steve?” Tamika asks. “Do you think things will ever be the way they were again?” 

Steve smiles at her sadly, handing her another marshmallow. “I really hope so.”

***** 

Steve would not be able to handle any of it without his four seconds-in-command. 

Troy learns how to bandage sprains and clean wounds quickly. He handles scheduling showers and baths too. Tamika helps Steve handle the weekly shopping lists and the budget, and schedule events like storytime and outside play. Carlos keeps track of everybody’s records; first and last names, medical histories and allergies, and Rivka deals with bedtimes, nightmares and making sure everybody eats and gets to and from school. 

Steve handles discipline. He gives a lot of lectures, and breaks up a lot of fights, and he doesn’t know how he manages to keep these kids from tearing each other apart with all that’s happened, but he’ll take it.

One day, he catches Carlos and Troy kissing in the stairwell on his way in from the garden and the boys break apart quickly.

“Sorry,” Steve says quickly as he rushes up the stairs. “Sorry, sorry, don’t mind me as you were.” 

Both boys laugh, embarrassed and amused, and Steve can’t help giving them a sheepish grin.

None of this is perfect, but it works. They make it work.

***** 

When he’d left, he’d made sure that the four oldest were in charge, and that everybody knew it. Even the Josh squad, known troublemakers, had agreed to follow Troy and Rivka and Carlos and Tamika.

When he gets back from fighting Thanos; from putting the stones back, from getting Nat back, from making sure Tony is settled, from seeing Bucky off back to Wakanda, half of the kids have reunited with their parents, having gotten phone calls, or just run home to find them.

The remaining twenty kids sit on the front stoop, along with about fifteen disgruntled adults, obviously the previous tenants of the building who had been taken in the snap.

“Thank god you’re back,” Tamika snaps. She and Troy are the only two of the oldest kids left. “These hipster assholes keep tryin’a kick us out.” 

Steve sighs softly. “Well...it was their home first…” He glances at the adults, and speaks a little louder. “But I hope they can find it in their hearts to share their space a little longer while we find everybody else’s parents.” 

“And who the hell are you, anyways?” one of the men sitting there snaps, his handlebar mustache turning up with his snear. 

Steve walks over, holding out a hand. “Steve Rogers.” 

“As in Captain America?” the man snorts. “Yeah, right.” 

“No, dude, that’s actually him,” Troy chimes in as he hands out snacks to the kids. 

“Prove it,” one of the other tenants says, this one a tall woman with a long nose. 

Steve sighs heavily and reaches into the pack on his back, pulling out his still-broken shield. He holds it awkwardly. “It uh...it got broken fighting the big purple asshole who tried to end the world. But…” 

The stoop goes silent and the twenty kids sitting there all get to their feet at once, surrounding him in hugs that almost knock him off his feet. 

“We’re so glad you’re okay!” 

“You saved us!” 

“Are you okay?!” 

“Your shield, oh no!” 

“Do you want my snack? You can have my snack, are you hungry, Mr. Steve?” 

“Holy moly!” 

“Did you kick his butt? I bet you kicked his butt!” 

Steve has to laugh a little. “Okay, okay, okay, everybody settle. Let’s sit down and eat snack and then we can talk about trying to find your parents.” Something tugs at his leg, and when he looks down, it’s to find Maggie, now three years old, hugging him tightly. “Aw, Magpie.” He lifts her up and brushes wispy blonde hair from her face. “Hey, sweetheart.” 

“Wow. This is what you got up to the last five years?” 

Steve looks over, and finds Tony standing beside one of his cars, watching the scene. 

“Holy crap, that’s Tony Stark!” one of the Joshes cries. 

“What happened to his arm?” Troy asks, narrowing his eyes at the red and gold prosthetic. 

“Whoa! Iron Man!” a Kevin marvels. 

“He’s not so fancy,” one of the Mollys comments, sticking her little nose in the air. 

Steve grins sheepishly. “Lota kids were left in the city without anybody to turn to for help. I did what I could.” 

“Yeah, clearly.” 

“This is only half of ‘em. The other half got picked up by their parents while I was gone,” Steve says, as he herds the kids to get settled. 

“Mister Stark,” one of the former tenants says, getting to his feet. “Look, before all this happened...this was our building.” 

Tony nods, as if he cares. “Uh-huh.” 

“And now all these kids are living in our homes, and-” 

“I’ll tell you what,” Tony tells them. “I’ll give you each twenty-five thousand dollars to grab your stuff and find a new place to live.” 

Silence falls over the group again, and nobody argues as Tony pulls his checkbook out. 

It’s settled within an hour. Checks are handed out, the previous tenants grab their belongings, and they leave as if they’d never been there to begin with. 

“So what happens now?” Tamika asks. 

“Pepp’s got an old college buddy who works for social services,” Tony tells them. “They can help us track down everybody’s parents. See what we can do.” He glances at Steve and does a double-take, noticing Maggie for the first time. “Who is this?” 

Steve sighs heavily. “This is Maggie. She got dumped here three years ago in a basket. No name, no nothin’.” 

“So she’s yours now,” Tony surmises. 

“Well, I-” 

“And you were just gonna leave her behind for Peggy?” Tony asks, bewildered. “Jeez, Cap.” 

Steve closes his eyes. “I’m...I’m still not convinced I made the right call in staying.” 

“S’okay, Pal,” Tony says, patting his shoulder. “I can be convinced enough for the both of us.” 

***** 

It takes another few months to find everybody’s parents and guardians. Mothers and father, older siblings and uncles and aunts and grandparents show up one by one for tearful reunions. Carlos and Rivka come back to help out, their parents in tow, and Steve’s glad for the help, and happy to get to see these two one more time.

Taryn the social worker works her ass off to find everybody’s adults, and eventually, and one day, it’s just Steve, Troy, Carlos, Tamika and Rivka sitting on the stoop, with Maggie in Steve’s arms, taking a nap.

“You guys didn’t have to stick around the way you did,” Steve comments. “We found your parents...you coulda left this behind.” 

“No we couldn’t,” Carlos tells him. 

Steve nods. “Thank you.” 

They sit and talk and drink lemonade. 

“You think we could get letters of recommendation for college?” Rivka asks jokingly. 

“You kid, But I want one,” Tamika laughs.

“Are you kidding?” Steve smiles. “I’ll show up to the schools in person. Uniform, broken shield and all.” 

He doesn’t say it, but there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for these four kids. The things they’ve been through together, and the strength and kindness they showed through the saddest, most terrifying, experience of their young lives...Steve looks at them and feels so much hope for the future, and so much affection for them.

It’s sundown when Carlos’ father, Tamika’s grandfather, Rivka’s aunt and Troy’s mother show up to get them. 

The group hug is tight, and a little tearful. 

“What’re you gonna do with Maggie?” Tamika asks. 

“I dunno, I guess she’s mine now,” Steve grins sheepishly. “Maggie Rogers, what do you guys think?” 

“Sounds good to me,” Rivka says. “Just remember not to feed her sugar after eight.” 

There are more tears after that and Troy hugs Steve tightly, separate from everyone else. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” 

He hugs the kid back, patting his shoulder, before pulling away and turning to the adults standing ready to take their kids home one final time.

He smiles at them. “You guys have the best kids.” 

END


End file.
